News round-up

Well, so much for posting from RWA! I got so busy I hardly had time to turn my computer on! I'm going to post an update on my adventures in New York in the next couple of days, but first I've got a few bits of news to share:

First off (and I'm really excited by this!) my latest book, Swept Off Her Stilettos, is available now at Mills and Boon! It'll be on the shelves next month in the UK, and also available online at Harlequin too. You can read a bit if you click on the 'browse' widget in the sidebar. (Yes, I know the cover is different, but it's the same book, I promise!)

If you enjoyed either Alice's story (Invitation To The Boss's Ball) or Jennie's story (Three Weddings And A Baby/Millionaire's Baby Bombshell), then you'll have met the heroine, Coreen, before. She's an irrespressible flirt, a vintage-fashion queen and a danger to anything with a Y chromosome. Of course, her no-prisoners approach to romance is going to end her up in trouble eventually....

Second bit of good news is that the middle book in these three linked books, Three Weddings And A Baby is only £1.49 at Amazon.co.uk at the moment - a total bargain! And it's also reduced to $2.38 at Amazon.com.

And lastly, my books are now available on iTunes - including the audio book version of Invitation To The Boss's Ball. Just search for "fiona harper" and up my books pop!

Special Offers!

I've just discovered that Invitation To The Boss's Ball (in a 2-in-1 with Nicola Marsh's A Trip With The Tycoon) is on sale at Mills & Boon. Only £1.99 for two books - either ebook or print! Not bad.

This is a very timely offer too, as Invitation To The Boss's Ball introduced the three heroines in what I refer to as my Vintage Fashion trilogy. Book two was Three Weddings And A Baby, my most recent release, and book three, Swept Off Her Stilettos, will be available very, very soon!


Invitation To The Boss's Ball won the Romantic Times reviewer's choice award last year, and was shortlisted for the HOLT medallion, the Bookseller's Best Awards and the Golden Quill Awards!

Not only that, but I've just noticed that Housekeeper's Happy-Ever-After is also on sale at M&B, paired with the fabulous Oh-So-Sensible Secretary by Jessica Hart. I's buy the book just for Jessica's story. Summer and Phin's story was one of my top romance reads last year and I was thrilled to be in such illustrious company.

Bits and pieces

I've just heard that Invitation To The Boss's Ball has been awarded a certificate of merit in the Short Contemporary category of the HOLT medallion! I'm so thrilled!

A full list of all the winners and finalists is here.

Holiday and surprises!

I've just come back from a much-needed holiday on the South Devon coast. Just look at these pics and you'll see why I'm so rested:

Anyway, I came home to the news that Invitation To The Boss's Ball is a finalist in the GDRWA's Booksellers' Best Award! And I found an honest-to-goodness glass award to put on my mantlepiece for my Golden Quill Award win. Made the tortoruously slow drive home on the motorway worth it!

Now I've just got to knuckle down and write the next book...

More good news!

I got some more good news! Both Blind-Date Baby and Invitation To The Boss's Ball are finalists in the Golden Quill Awards' Tradtitional category.

I've been working hard for the last three weeks on revising Jennie and Alex's story, so this news was a much needed boost.

Best Harlequin Romance of 2009

I'm thrilled to be able to announce that Invitation To The Boss's Ball has won the Romantic Times Reviewers' Choice Award for Best Harlequin Romance of 2009!




Great news to spur me on while I struggle with my revsions. I'm a visual thinker, and find it helpful if I can 'see' my story structure. Post-it notes are my best friends. But in an attempt to get my head round my current story, my desk is looking like a scene from Bruce Almighty. Well, sort of...

And it'll probably get worse before it gets better.

Cinderella's Dress

My geeky heroine, Alice, has a vintage fashion makeover during the course of Invitation To The Boss’s Ball. She sees herself as a bit of a stick insect (not a problem I’ve ever had, unfortunately) but I wanted to show that all shapes and sizes can have issues about their bodies and that all of us can be beautiful and sexy. I think ‘sexy’ is more about what’s on the inside, anyway.

The best era of dress to suit Alice would have either been a flapper dress from the Twenties, or something bias cut from the Thirties. Since the ball she was attending had a theme of ‘Old Hollywood Glamour’ I chose the latter, thinking of stars such as Carole Lombard and Ginger Rogers when my imagination got to work on Alice’s attire. I don’t actually have a picture of the dress because it’s a combination of different ideas I saw when I was doing my research. The colour had to be deep, dark green, like the first picture, but I think the style was probably more like the other pictures, something that would flatter a willowy figure.


Why green? It’s my favourite colour – especially dark green. It’s possible that when I thought “Thirties” and “green dress” that I subliminally thought of Kiera Knightly’s dress in Atonement, but I haven’t seen the film and the green I had in mind was much darker. However, when I googled “green thirties dress” and tons of movie stills popped up, I decided this picture captured something of the wistful, romantic feel I wanted for some of the ball scenes and I used it as my computer wallpaper while I was writing the book.

Initially, I just pictured a pair of fabulous vintage shoes as Alice’s footwear, something satin or sparkly, but when I came across this picture, I knew they were perfect. Glass heels! Perfect for Cinderella! Of course, the heels aren’t really glass, they’re Lucite – a type of Perspex. In my mind, the heels on Alice’s shoes were entirely clear, unlike the shoes in the picture, which are only partly Lucite. Seriously, if these vintage shoes had been in my size, I would have bought them in an instant.

A change of clothes wasn’t all that Alice needed. If an ugly ducking is going to be a swan, she needs a complete makeover. I could have gone for a coiled and waved hairdo (see the top picture of Carole Lombard), but I decided that it wasn’t dramatic enough. The image that sprung instantly to mind was of movie star Veronica Lake, famed for her sexy peek-a-boo side parting. It was just the thing to knock not only Cameron’s socks off but the breath right out of his lungs.

Love Affair With Vintage Fashion

I’ve always had a thing about vintage clothes. I think it's a fascination for the dressing-up box that has never quite left me. As a student often bought my clothes in charity shops and second-hand shops, wearing vintage dresses and blouses before the phrase ‘vintage’ was widely used for other people's old clothes. When I was writing Invitation To The Boss's Ball I thought about some of the lovely dresses and blouses I had bought in various ‘retro’ shops, and I realised that I had owned more than just a couple of vintage items. At one time they had made up a major part of my wardrobe.

Here’s a pic of me in a 1950s dress that was a particular favourite in the late 80s. This was taken on my honeymoon, when I visited Venice. I don’t have the dress any more, unfortunately. It eventually disintegrated, but I wore it until it fell apart.

As I looked back through my photo albums, I discovered many more photos of vintage clothing I’d worn. Here’s one of me at my 21st birthday party, wearing a home-made peach lace cocktail dress I found in a shop near where I went to college. The satin bow round the waist was just the most amazing fabric. When Alice's admires the cocktail dress in the opening paragraphs of the book, it was this bow I was thinking about as I wrote:

"The old oyster-coloured satin had the most wonderful texture—smooth but not slippery, like modern imitations, stiff and reassuringly heavy. Anyone who saw the cocktail dress would just have itched to touch it, and this is what Alice did, letting her fingertips explore it fully, lingering on the crease of the sash as it folded into a bow just under the bust line."


As well as my charity shop finds there were the items I hijacked from my mother’s wardrobe. I still have two suede jackets of hers from the 60s, one brown, one bottle-green. Wish I could still fit into them. I have to confess to being a 'goth' in my latter teenage years, which happened to be around the time that Madonna first burst onto the pop scene. (Okay, seriously giving my age away here!) I dressed like many of my friends who had straight hair, but they teased me mercilessly for trying to look like Madonna - which I hotly denied, of course. I reckon it must be the curly hair - it added a different dimension to the look. But when I found this picture of myself in my mum's suede-fronted green jacket, I had to admit my friends might just have had a point. Oh well, being compared to someone who is now one of the world's most successful female artists isn't too shabby really, is it?

This picture was taken at a fancy dress party which had a 60s theme. The velvet and chiffon dress was one from that very decade, passed down to me by my grandmother. She recognised my penchant for old and unusual clothes, even though she often tutted at my fashion choices. The dress was originally knee length, but I shortened it to get an even stronger 60s look. Wish I hadn't now. Don't think I will ever be brave enough (or young enough) to wear it that short again.

At the very beginning of Invitation To The Boss's Ball, my vintage clothing aficionado heroine is unpacking a box that her partner has brought back from a house clearance:

"Alice carefully lifted a peacock-blue taffeta evening cape out of the box and when she saw what was underneath it, she froze. There they were, just sitting there—the perfect pair of shoes."

I have to own up to possessing that very peacock-blue cape. It's gorgeous, with vibrant blue watermarked taffeta on the outside, and a matching white taffeta lining. It has a little silver button at the collar and tailored slits in the front to elegantly slip your wrists through. Trying it on, you have to resist the urge to swan around like Grace Kelly. At least I do. Never had the courage or the occasion to wear it, though. Too worried about looking like a superhero who's lost her way. Maybe one day.

Invitation To The Boss's Ball - Vintage Fashion

I can’t really blog about Invitation To The Boss’s Ball without mentioning the glorious vintage clothing. My heroine, Alice, is going into business with her best friend, the owner of a market stall that sells vintage clothing. Their dream is to open a shop of their own – somewhere out of the wind and rain, with four walls and an office.

Here are some pictures of the sort of things I envisaged Alice and her friend Coreen wearing through out the book.

In the original version of my book there was an opening scene where Alice realised her current boyfriend, Paul, was nowhere close to Prince Charming. He ruined her lovely olive-green dress by chucking a wrapped up doner kebab in her lap. Unfortunately, the scene went by the way of the cutting-room floor during the revisions process. Still love the dress, though.

As Alice has to find some office wear when she movs her party-planning project into Cameron's offices, I could imagine her wearing cute little cardigans and silk embroidered blouse like this. Since she was used to wearing jeans, trainers and old fleece jackets, I wanted her to discover her feminine side. I also wanted her to stand out from the high-powered business suits and killer heels of Cameron's female employees.

Alice's friend, Coreen, is a true vintage fashionista. She loves dressing like a 40s or 50s pin-up girl. For some reason, always seemed to be wearing red shoes when she appeared in the book. I didn't plan that but it seemed to go with her personality, so I kept it in. (I'm hoping to write Coreen a little romance of her own sometime soon.) Anyway, Coreen's outfit for the ball was, as Alice puts it, "a little black dress that was fifties restraint and pure sin all at the same time". Here's the picture that was the inspiration for Coreen's party dress.

Of course, the girls aren't the only ones who get to wear some vintage fashion thoughout the course of the book. Alice gives Cameron the gift of some cufflinks. In my mind they were octagonal, like the ones on the right, but with tiger's eye stones set into them. Alice sees Cameron's platinum cufflinks as he takes them off to put her ones in and she's reminded that they are truly from two different worlds. How could she have been so stupid as to think she had anything to give him? Cameron, on the other hand, is thinking how wonderfully unique his gift is - rather like the enigmatic redhead to gave them to him.

The other half of Cameron's present from Alice is a tie. His was dark, dark green, not brown like the one in the photo here. It's not until things are going badly, badly wrong that Cameron finds out there is a secret contained in what looks like a boring old tie, and Alice turns it against him, telling him: ‘This is the kind of woman you need. Always ready, always glamorous, never having an ‘off’ day. Who cares if she isn’t real? She’ll never ask anything of you, never ask you for a piece of your soul. In short, she’ll always be your perfect woman.’

Lastly, here's the dress Alice wears in the final scene, where she goes to the V&A to see the new vintage clothing exhibition. I love this dress! It's just so cute. And just so Alice.

Of course, you may have noticed that I've left two vital pieces out of this list: Alice's fabulous emerald silk vintage gown and her glass-heeled shoes. There was so much I could say about Alice's makeover for the ball that I decided to dedicate a whole post to it. Watch out for that soon.

Reviews

Invitation To The Boss's Ball has just got some really great reviews:

"Fabulous, fun and feel-good, you’ll adore every single word of Fiona Harper’s irresistible new Harlequin Romance" Cataromance

"Fresh, funny, tender and absolutely mesmerizing" Pink Heart Society Reviews

"Definitely a winner." All About Romance

Invitation To The Boss's Ball - Hero and Heroine

Alice is skinny, with bright red hair – too bright be called anything but ‘ginger’ – and she lives in jeans, trainers and her brother’s over-sized fleeces. It's not that she isn't pretty; it's just that she doesn't believe she's pretty.

If there ever was a girl crying out for a makeover, she's it. Not that she knows she wants this – that yearning is buried deep down inside and she’s too scared to dream she can be anything else than a guy’s best friend. She’s certainly not the kind of girl men fall down and worship. She just wants an average guy to live and average little life with. What a pity, then, she’s falling for Cameron Hunter, who’s so far out of her league it just isn’t funny…

Cameron is a software tycoon whose difficult past has driven him to succeed at any cost, to prove himself not only to the upper-class boys that used to bully him at school, but to the whole world. And he’s doing a rather good job of it.

But then he runs into Alice, a childhood friend who can help him out of a rather big jam, and he starts to look at his life with a fresh perspective. He’s not quite sure he likes what he sees. He’s spent his whole life climbing to the top of the heap, but he suspects all he’s done and all he is won’t be enough for the quiet, determined redhead he’s desperate to impress.

Invitation To The Boss's Ball - Story Inspiration

People often ask me where I get my ideas for stories. Invitation To The Boss’s Ball had a bit more of a roundabout birth than my books normally do:

Last year I wrote the blinddatebrides.com trilogy with Jennie Adams and Melissa McClone. The editors didn’t give us a storyline – the just asked us to come up with something fresh and urban – so we spent what seemed like weeks instant messaging back and forth trying to come up with a clutch of ideas we thought might appeal.

One of our first ideas was for three heroines who set up their own internet company specialising in lingerie for women of all shapes and sizes. My heroine was going to be Alice, a lingerie designer, who was as thin as a rake and thought she was far too androgynous to wear her own creations – until she meets the hero, of course, and starts to feel sexy and a little more confidant.

The Romance editors weren’t sure about the lingerie company (too sexy?), so we went back to the drawing board and came up with a whole new raft of ideas. One of mine was as follows:

Three girls in three different countries discover that having the perfect pair of killer heels can be just the right ingredient when searching for their Prince Charming. Of course, Cinders’ luck with shoes and men was a little up and down, and our heroines just might discover that there’s more to love than Jimmy Choos…

I was going to tweak Alice into a fashion illustrator who bought a wonderful pair of shoes second-hand at a charity shop, but always felt she wasn’t sexy enough to do them justice. However, for the trilogy we ended up picking an internet dating theme, and I realised Alice was all wrong for the forty-year-old empty nester heroine in my book, so I waved her bye-bye and consigned her to my ideas file, turning my attention to Grace, who stormed away with the part.

However, once the trilogy was done and I was discussing ideas for new books with my editor, she mentioned a new mini-series in the Romance line called “In Her Shoes”. Basically, modern-day Cinderella stories. I knew a heroine who could fill those shoes! Alice.

The basic idea for her character remained the same, but I decided the shoes shouldn’t just be second-hand but vintage. And that’s when the ideas really began to fly! Before I knew it I was trawling vintage clothing sites, salivating over the wonderful clothes. I even found a pair of shoes with ‘glass’ heels. Right then, I knew I had my story and that Alice wasn’t going to be consigned to the ideas folder any longer!

More on the story behind the story soon...

RT Top Pick

More interruptions to my RWA conference blogging!


My next release, Invitation To The Boss's Ball, is a top pick in the September issue of The Romantic Times Book Reviews magazine, with a 4½ star (top-rated) review! Here's the reviewer's verdict:


INVITATION TO THE BOSS’S BALL (4.5) by Fiona Harper: IT consultant Alice Morton’s fledgling vintage clothing business gets a jump-start when her friend Jennies stepbrother, software tycoon Cameron Hunter, hires her to organize a fashion show and auction for the launch of his new building. It’s a huge undertaking, and Cameron's morphed from the gangly nerd Alice once knew into a smooth, sexy man who dates supermodels. There’s an undeniable spark between them, but even if Cameron wasn’t slightly out of Alice’s league, he’s not a forever kind of guy. Or is he? Soundly plotted, funny and emotional, this one has it all. And hunky Cameron’s a keeper.

New Cover

If anyone was feeling particularly eagle-eyed when looking at my last post about my Clippykit bag, you would have noticed the covers for my new book, due to be released in September - Invitation To The Boss's Ball.

This book is part of the In Her Shoes mini-series - modern-day Cinderella stories for the 21st century reader. Mine has a downtrodden heroine, a suitably remote prince in his high tower, a ball and even a fairy godmother who completes a transformation on the heroine with a wave of her (mascara) wand...

Alice Morton ends up having to organise a charity ball and fashion show for tycoon Cameron Hunter after his event planner elopes and leaves him in the lurch. She's a wannabe vintage fashion retailer who never, ever wears anything glamorous, and he's the boy she had her first crush on, aged sixteen, who has always been out of her league. But as the night of the ball approaches and Alice and Cameron start working closely together, magic begins to sizzle. Will Cinderella make it home with both her shoes? And will her prince come looking for her when she disappears into the night? You'll just have to read it to find out!

As you can see, in the UK, Mills & Boon are trying something new with the Romance line. From August, the books will be 2-in-1s, and have a brand new look. I'm sharing the pages with Nicola Marsh, whose Trip With The Tycoon is set in exotic India and is part of the Escape Around The World mini-series. I think the cover is very pretty and I'd been interested to hear what you think of it compared to old-style pink Romance covers. Will this look be less embarrassing to read on the train or in the coffee shop, or will die-hard M&B fans just not care?